Comment by SeptimusT on 07/04/2020 at 16:46 UTC

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View submission: Did Emperor Ashoka really exist?

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That’s getting into the literary realm and a bit out of my depth, to be entirely honest. That being said, during the course of my research, the answer is either “not really” or “none that still survives.” They definitely had a sense of history and there are relatively reliable chronologies, but there are also many gaps in our understanding. The texts that we do have are a lot later and usually biased, but still have ‘echoes’ of reality. And of course, Ashoka’s inscriptions themselves do show some sense of historical consciousness.

The Mauryan period did see a lot of literary development, such as the compilation of some early forms of the Mahabharata.

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There's nothing here!